


Panoptica

by sycamore



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Literature, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2019-11-05 12:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17918699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sycamore/pseuds/sycamore
Summary: Original story link: https://www.deviantart.com/polydeuce/art/Panoptica-Chapter-1-Steven-Stone-x-Reader-550852380





	Panoptica

**Author's Note:**

> Original story link: https://www.deviantart.com/polydeuce/art/Panoptica-Chapter-1-Steven-Stone-x-Reader-550852380

On a cold day in springtime, there were ashes and blood on the marble palace floor. 

A prince lay on shattered glass, with his father, the king, beside him. The only difference was that he did not have a sword pierced in his breast.

He heard laughter echo through the palace halls as thieves looted jewels, relics, and artwork, leaving the only home he’d known unrecognisable, barren. And there was no way he could stop it.

But he tried. Wounded in the leg, he dragged himself against the glass shards cutting into his skin, trying to crawl out of the throne room and into the hall. His cloak, soaked with his father’s blood, weighed him down, yet he didn’t mind it at all, leaving a trail of blood across marble.

It was painstaking for Prince Steven—well, technically he was _king_ now, but it isn’t official without a coronation—but he pushed himself, taking hold on a door frame made of ivory. 

And then, the laughter stopped. Six people stared at him, either with fear or anger.

“He’s still alive?” asks one thief, dark–skinned with an accusing look on her face. She turned back to another girl, one with unhealthily pale skin and tresses the colour of purple. “Courtney, go, finish the deed—”

“I’ll do it,” the figure at the back pipes up. Cloak fluttering through the heavy wind from the broken window, she makes her way, dropping her loot in the arms of the first thief. “Take care of that, Zinnia. I’m going to make sure that _all_ of the royal bloodline is slain.”

Fear courses through Steven’s bloodstream as the thief grabbed his collar. He couldn’t breathe as she dragged him across the throne room, cloth pulled hard against his throat.

“I’m going to make this quick, Prince–y,” she says aloud, looking back to her teammates. She sets him to lie behind the throne, shielding the others the gruesome details.

She takes out her dagger, making sure the sound of unsheathing was loud enough to make a show. If he was in top condition he could take her out, but his arms felt weak and dreary from the blood lost and dust from fallen columns.

As she places the blade across his throat, he pulls away as far as he can and closes his eyes, hoping it’s quick and painless.

But she leans in, close to his ear, and whispers. “Act like it, Your Highness.”

 _What?_ He pries one eye open, squinting in pain in confusion. 

She sighs heavily. “Just—scream, like you’re dying,” she’s getting impatient now, showing in her expression, but she looks down and gets an idea.

Replacing the dagger with a tightly clasped hand, she prods the tip in his leg wound. Steven gasps sharply, trying to squirm out of her grasp, but she presses it deeper. He cries out, his cracked voice echoing the now empty, wrecked room, “P–please, s–stop it—”

“Shhhh,” she whispers, using her calloused thumb to rub the soft skin of his throat. Her eyes meet with Steven’s own blue ones; they were filled with pity for the fallen prince. “I’m so sorry.”

And amidst the heavy rubble and ash, he collapsed behind the throne his father sat alive in just an hour ago, dagger deep in his thigh.

— —

He wakes up to rolling thunder and the soft patter of rain droplets on his skin. His eyes met to a grey, cloudy sky, with no memory of what he had witnessed at all.

His head throbbed, his vision blurry—he believed he had fallen asleep on the palace balcony, but that was proven wrong when he tried to rise.

Steven’s wrists and ankles were restrained, bound tightly by rope. As he looked down to inspect such rope, he saw his thigh wrapped in dressing, and he found himself not in the cushioned Palace of Devon, but with a curved, wooden wall. Then it hit him—

A boat. He’s in a boat.

He turns around, twisting his torso to have a good look at his captor and captain who’s turned away. They fortunately have a cloak on. Steven frowns.

He clears his throat, pushing ash down; where even did it come from? “W–who are you?” he croaked, wincing, struggling to speak. “Where are you taking me?”

A sigh. The fingers on the paddle handle grippen, and whoever they are sucks in a breath. “Both those questions will remain unanswered for now.”

A feminine voice. His first thought is to a pair of eyes, full of pity. _Who is that…?_

He turns his body around to have a better look. “Is this—is this a kidnapping?” he accuses. “Ask for whatever ransom you must, but be well aware you will not live to spend it—”

His captor sighs heavily again. “Shhhh. Should I gag you too? I’m not going to hurt you or ask for money in exchange for your body. I’m simply keeping you safe.”

 _So it is her,_ he thinks, but he had no idea where he remembered her from.

But he pushes that thought away. A kidnapper is still a kidnapper, no matter who they were. “I have to get back to the castle! That’s where I will truly be safe at—”

“Prince Steven of Hoenn,” she snaps, her voice taking a serious note. He hears wood clanking with wood, and the boat slows down to a swaying over the water. “The castle burnt to the ground. Your father is dead and you are assumed to be too. Unless you have desire to join him, it is best for you to keep the interrogation to a minimum.”

He closes his mouth, looking down, remembering everything that happened. It seems surreal, like it was dream. But it’s real, evident in his leg wounded by glass and a dagger. “You stabbed me,” he murmurs.

She puts the paddle right next to her, hugging her knees to her chest, giving up her demeaning mask. “Because I wanted you alive,” she says softly. “And not for ransom or torture or slavery, but because…I just felt like you weren’t meant to die that day.”

Steven closes his eyes, leaning his head back on the wooden floor of the boat. It must be hilarious speaking about this to someone completely restrained, but he didn’t want to laugh. He didn’t want to laugh ever again.

Pulling the hood of her cloak off, she sighs, using her fingers to brush the glass-like water around them. Her voice a low tone, she whispers her name.

The air turns colder around Steven, and he feels chilly without his thick cloak. “[Name]…,” he wonders, feeling like he’d heard of her before. 

Water splashes as she starts paddling again. “If I happen to let you free, are you going to report me?”

Anything to make a situation better, his father used to say to him, even if it meant lying to the people. “No, of course not.”

“I’m still not going to untie you just yet,” she says, closing her eyes. “Besides, all the royalty—except you—all are deceased, so there’s no one to report to.”

Choked, he felt his breath hitch up. Maybe it was actually better if he died, because he’s sure he wouldn’t be able to live on alone.

[Name], meanwhile, was listing along names that meant nothing to her but everything to Steven. “Duchess Glacia and Countess Phoebe, Count Drake and Duke Sidney—all four of them are gone,” she rattles on. “No one else left in line.”

 _Actually,_ Steven thought, _Wallace and his niece Lisia are next after the Elite._ But he pressed his lips together and said nothing more; she didn’t seem like one to take this news well.

The rain was pouring heavily now, so she pulled her cloak on again, leaving Steven cold and wet, with no one to speak to. Hopefully he’ll die of hypothermia before waking up tomorrow, so he could be with his father.

After what felt like a decade to him, the boat docked on sand. [Name] stands up and drags it even farther across the tiny island, near a rock formation that shielded them from the rain—limestone, Steven could tell from the texture.

“This is my secret base,” [Name] says, lifting Steven’s shivering form up, enabling him to see above the rim of the boat. It’s a limestone cave, he realises, filled to such a smooth surface that it looks like a normal, circular room. She throws him on her bed, wrapping him in the blanket, setting a fire in a small indent in the wall.

Taking her cloak off, she sits in front of the warmth, rubbing her hands. “Magma and Aqua are at each other’s throats, fighting for control right now,” she explains. “I want to stay out of that for a couple of fortnights. And you’ll stay here too, until you heal your leg, I’ll boat you out to maybe Meteor Falls or something. You can live there for the rest of your life, away from being murdered just because of your bloodline.”

Affection rushed through his body—he always wanted to feel normal, at least once in his life. This was his chance.

“So, one month before you let me go?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Are you still going to keep me bounded the entire wait?”

Her lips played up in a smile, a bright one accompanied by a slight laugh. “Let me warm up first, then I’ll help you.”

**Author's Note:**

> i never receive gifts, and it's much more likely for me to give instead of get—so you can consider this my gift to all of you c:
> 
> way before i wrote romance, i focused entirely on fantasy and medieval fiction alone. and i've always wanted to honour steven in this way, i don't know why XD i suppose this could be the first of many fantasy fan fiction i could give him.
> 
> thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed!! please leave a comment if you feel like it—it'll keep me going, i promise c:
> 
> 6/10


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